Nicotine and Morphemes
by 120shadowlev27
Summary: Short scene. Lavi can't distract himself from the blood stains on the walls for very long, so he guesses it's ok to bum a smoke off Tyki.


Just a shorty cuz I had this crazy image of Lavi smoking in my mind. I may do more with this image.

SPOILERS: For after the Third Exorcists arc. However, I think you can read this without having read the manga.

Background: Essentially, the Church "rescues" Lavi from the Noah, but suspect he is a traitor. It was actually a plot of the Noah's to destabilize Lavi's loyalty. Because they don't want Lavi dead, they send Tyki to rescue him if anything bad happens or if Lavi shows signs of turning to the Noah side.

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><p>The blood stains at least gave him something to look at. Staring at the patterns, Lavi could discern how they were caused. There were several old pools, caused by injuries that had seeped from captives, and then there were splashes on the walls, some in large drops caused by instruments of pain, and some in fine mist. He could tell where someone had used the wall as an instrument, leaving a thin trickle to stain the stone.<p>

He couldn't however, spend much time staring at the new stains. A pool that had just recently stained before being roughly cleaned up in the corner, the sign of an injury left unattended. A wide array of new drops, the sign of a struggle. Then there was the drops leaving the room, the sign of escape. There had been only one other prisoner to inhabit this prison besides he in the past twenty years. But Lavi couldn't think of that right now.

Distracting himself, however, was not going to be an easy task in this dark prison. The pain of the old wounds and of the parasites no longer kept thoughts at bay. It looked like the only way to keep from going insane was to break his vow of silence. He sighed and lifted his manacled arm, fiddling with the cuffs again. They were high class. The internal locking mechanism was not one that allowed for easy picking, especially not with the limited material Lavi had in his possession. They wouldn't break either. Despite his desperation to get away from this madhouse, Lavi wasn't going to resort to breaking his hands to squeeze out. Now wasn't the time for that madness.

A short scratchy noise and a smell of sulfur wafted through the stale air of the cell. The red head looked up at his second prisoner. Tyki was lighting a cigarette, staring boredly at the end. As he inhaled and breathed out, he folded his arms over his newly healed chest and looked even more bored.

"Oi," Lavi called out, drawing the dark-skin's attention, "Can I bum one of those?"

Tyki blinked in surprise. This was the first time his captive had talked since he'd been brought in, "rescued," by the Cardinals. Tyki was currently under orders from the Earl not to rescue him, just to let the Cardinals mess with him, unless they tried to kill him. So instead, he just waited with the red head. It was pretty boring, especially since Junior declined all of his attempts at conversation.

"I never figured you for a smoker," Tyki commented, slipping his pack out from his pocket and shaking it. He was surprised; he usually went through them pretty quickly.

"Gramps started me out young," Lavi rasped, "then I joined the Order and only got to do it when with Gramps only, anyone else would get pissed. It's one of those times when I'm craving it."

"Only if you promise to be conversational with me," Tyki stipulated, "I'm getting rather bored sitting here and guarding your life."

"Yeah, so you bring me back and torture me more to get information out of Gramps," he spat, "but I'll be conversational."

"Good boy," Tyki murmured and slid one out, offering it to Lavi. The shackles clinked as he lifted his heavy arm up to take the smoke and hold it between his lips. Tyki struck a match and held it to the end of the cigarette. Slowly, slowly, Lavi sucked in enough to light it and inhaled. Not wanting to expend any more energy lifting shackles, Lavi just held it between his lips to suckle it. Tyki settled down beside him.

"So, what's your favorite language?" Tyki finally asked. Lavi raised an eyebrow and looked over to the man, cigarette still dangling in his mouth. He'd been expecting the usual round of questions.

"Hmmm?" he asked inquisitively. Tyki sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Aren't you Bookman supposed to be fluent in all kinds of languages?" he furthered. Lavi nodded in agreement.

"It's really hard to say," he started, "I guess my answer would be the languages I haven't learned yet." Tyki raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Why's that?" he asked. The red head shrugged, inhaling deeply and letting the smoke stay in his lungs for a while.

"Cuz then I don't know it, it sounds mysterious and cool," Lavi explained, "Once you start learning languages, they're all the same. All words are comprised of morphemes, and location dictates how many morphemes per word. They all have some kind of word order that can be one of three. And all the words mean something that you already know. I get bored when I see the same thing in new forms."

"Hmmmm," Tyki murmured, before blinking and noting the footsteps outside the door. Lavi noted them as well and took a few hearty drags, burning the cigarette to a nub. Tyki leaned over and grabbed it, pocketing it before standing up and looking at the dirty boy in the cell. With a smile, he said, "You've given me something to chew upon."

With that, he morphed through the wall until only his face peered out from a dark cover. Lavi steeled himself as his other tormentors walked in with the taste of tobacco on his tongue, one of the only attachments that wouldn't hurt him in the end.

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><p>Yeah, smoking will hurt Lavi in the end. Poor bby. Anyway, thank you for reading. Please review.<p> 


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